Before you were mine

Before you were mine

I'm ten years away from the corner you laugh on
with your pals, Maggie McGeeney and Jean Duff.
The three of you bend from the waist, holding
each other, or your knees, and shriek at the pavement.
Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn.

I'm not here yet. The thought of me doesn't occur
in the ballrooms with the thousand eyes, the fizzy, movie tomorrows
the right walk home could bring. I knew you would dance
like that. Before you were mine, your Ma stands at the close
with a hiding for the late one. You reckon it's worth it.

The decade ahead of my loud, possessive yell was the best one, eh?
I remember my hands in those high-heeled red shoes, relics,
and now your ghost clatters towards me over George Square
Till I see you, clear as scent, under the tree,
with its lights, and whose small bites on your neck, sweetheart?

Cha cha cha! You'd teach me the steps on the way home from Mass,
stamping stars from the wrong pavement. Even then
I wanted the bold girl winking in Portobello, somewhere
in Scotland, before I was born. That glamorous love lasts
where you sparkle and waltz and laugh before you were mine.

by Carol Ann Duffy

This is a poem I had to read for my GCSE English lit. Actually we had to compare this with another poem in an essay and my teacher thought it so good she read it out to the entire class! Imagine my embarrassment when she started reading my comments on the sexuality of the other poem in front of a group of 15 year olds!!! They all knew I had written it just by looking at my face LOL

Anyway, when I first read it I was still unappreciative of non-rhyming poems and I really didn't "get it". But as I studied it I began to develop an understanding of it and in time that has turned into appreciation and now it stands as a love of the poem. I LOVE this poem, the feeling and the meaning behind those words.

For me it symbolises the love of a mother for her child - the way of life she gave up and the way of life she gained. It is about a child looking at her mother through new eyes - discovering a new way of loving her. It is about understanding, acceptance and shared memories. And it is so much more than that...

Perhaps it will mean nothing to you - but for me this is very special and very important to me right now.